This is something I've struggled with: how to distinguish "brute memorization" (my term for it) from "natural memorization" or, in instructivist's phrase, "thoughtful memorization."
Constructivist philosophy defines the word "memorization" as most folks do: the student sits down with a set of flash cards and commits material to memory.
I assume (don't know) that the flash card approach is essential in some realms: foreign language courses, law school, med school.....yes?
But "brute memorization," generally speaking, probably isn't the best way to go about acquiring knowledge, and is not the method a knowledge-focused curriculum like Saxon Math employs.
Unfortunately, we don't have a term for the kind of memorization Saxon Math induces.
Saxon Math produces memorization via spaced repetition, which is, I believe, the way everyday life produces memorization.
Here is my sense of the way in which natural memorization works:
- content to be committed to memory is broken into the smallest meaningful units
- the smallness of the units allows each unit to be held in working memory (or consciousness) in its entirety
- using working memory, the student distributes his practice of these small units over time (distributed practice or spaced repetition)
- in time the units being practiced naturally enter long-term memory
This seems to be the way most material enters long-term memory in the day to day. One repeatedly encounters and/or practices an idea or skill until one simply "has it."
Example.
I'm going to guess that quite a few ktm readers and commenters now possess a usable or at least semi-usable definition of the term working memory.
Did you acquire this by sitting down with a flash card and rotememorizing it?
No.
You acquired a usable knowledge of working memory by repeatedly encountering the term in posts and comments until you remembered it.
This process is natural, and it is inevitable. Memory is a core function of the brain; people who don't remember things have brain disorders. Bad ones.
Constructivist antipathy to memory and remembering is quite perverse -- it is unnatural, as a matter of fact -- but it is consistent with constructivist antipathy to knowledge.
The brain naturally acquires knowledge. Yes, I know the brain does not naturally acquire knowledge of algebra absent a good textbook and teacher ( ! )
However, if you have a good textbook and/or teacher it is entirely natural to acquire knowledge of algebra whether you give a damn about algebra or not. As a matter of fact, it's entirely natural to acquire some knowledge of algebra even with a mediocre textbook and a so-so teacher. Repeated practice causes us to remember what we've practiced, period.
If you don't want students acquiring knowledge, you're going to have to oppose memory and memorization.
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As to direct memorization and its place in formal education or in any training program, my sense is that it is often the fastest route to remembering. From time to time Saxon will tell the student, "Memorize this." His meaning is always: You're going to need this, you're going to use this, just go ahead and memorize it.
Direct memorization is a shortcut.
I think.
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hmmm...
Direct memorization probably isn't a bad term for the kind of simple, straightforward, put-it-on-a-flashcard-and-practice-it memorization constructivists call "rote."
Hake Grammar has the same approach. "Memorize this." Every so often you have to memorize a list of prepositions, helping verbs, and so on because you will be quizzed on it later. This happens directly (recalling and writing down as many as you can remember) and in the process of completing the exercises (what is the helping verb in this statement?)
ReplyDeleteMemory is associative, so remembering something is easier if you have some other content to attach it to. The more content or better framework you have, the easier it is. But all memorization is not equal.
ReplyDeleteI love historical timelines (large and small), but many educators abhor memorizing dates. One of the trustees at my son's old private school railed on and on about having to memorize the presidents when she was growing up. She said it was a waste of time. In other words, direct memorization doesn't work. My feeling is that she was taking her knowledge framework for granted.
However, if you don't have some sort of historical timeline framework in your head, where do you place new information? All educated adults use frameworks, even if they are very crude. Some use wars: Gulf War, Vietnam War, Korean War, WWII, etc. New bits of information fit into slots of that framework. Whenever I venture into a new area of knowledge, I look for a proper framework. It makes learning so much easier.
"Direct memorization is a shortcut."
Of course it is. It's a shortcut to building a framework for knowledge and understanding. You could build this framework using indirect techniques, but it will take much longer and might not get done.
Some educators think that a thematic (cross-subject) approach provides the best framework for knowledge. I disagree. Knowledge has to be first organized within its own subject area to have any kind of meaning. Thematic linkages do not provide a proper framework. Linkages must come after basic knowledge frameworks are built.
In math, the framework is built around basic skills, not linkages with the real world, or writing, or geography, or anything else. You have to memorize the times table, and you have to memorize basic algorithms. This kind of memorization does not preclude understanding, it facilitates it. The framework might look rote, but it won't stay that way for long.
You use a framework to organize knowledge, and you use this knowledge to give you understanding. You don't start with understanding and then create the framework. The proper educational direction is bottom up, not top down.
Knowledge has to be first organized within its own subject area to have any kind of meaning. Thematic linkages do not provide a proper framework. Linkages must come after basic knowledge frameworks are built.
ReplyDeleteI've come to this conclusion, as well. The evidence of failure is all over the place. I see so many teachers and administrators who believe the opposite, however.
As far as memorization, I often find people confusing the grade school brain with their own adult brain. Grade schoolers think memorizing is fun. Is it higher ordered thinking? No, but there isn't a lot of that going on in grade school.
Will all of it stick? No, but a lot of grade school memorization does seem to. I heard a song that I had not heard in 40-something years the other day. Not only did I remember every lyric, but also when the instruments played this or that. I was also shocked to find that my same-aged friend remembered every detail, as well.
I can't remember what I made for dinner the night before, but I remember some lame bubble-gum song from the 60's right down to the synthesizer riffs.
I also had my son memorized the 23 helping verbs and he has had to use it at various times for the little grammar quizzes they pop in here and there. It wasn't hard and it exercised a "muscle" that he is going to need at various times. Even though he learned them in the 2nd grade, he hasn't forgotten them because he has to pull them out occasionally.
"Grade schoolers think memorizing is fun."
ReplyDeleteMy son loved the idea of learning about geography in first grade. He learned all of the states and capitals, could find any country in the world, and knew most of the world capitals. While we were in the car, he would always say: "Time for geography questions." He wasn't interested in "understanding". He was interested in facts. He was building a framework for understanding. Long ago I said that he was a sponge for knowledge and the school was feeding him with a teaspoon.
I don't think this is unusual. Kids are very good at learning facts about things they are interested in: dinosaurs, sports, video games, Harry Potter, etc. The problem comes when they get to school and have to learn about something they aren't interested in. Teachers think that learning is some magical process that they don't want to damage. They don't want to dive right in and get to work. They end up with time-wasting indirect play learning. Expectations are lower and fuzzier and then they try to convince everyone that this is a better education.
Classical education philosophy refers to grades 1 through 4 as the "Grammar Stage". The reasons are exactly those that Susan and Steve have outlined in the comments.
ReplyDeleteThe Well-Trained Mind
Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Bauer
The Parrot Years:
Houses rest on foundations. Journalists gather all the facts before writing their stories; scientists accumulate data before forming theories; violinists and dancers and defensive tackles rely on muscle memory, stored in their bodies by hours of drill.
A classical education requires a student to collect, memorize, and categorize information. Although this process continues through all twelve grades, the first four grades are the most intensive for fact collecting.
This isn't a fashionable approach to early education. Much classroom time and energy has been spent in an effort to give children every possible opportunity to express what's inside them. There's nothing wrong with self-expression but when self-expression pushes the accumulation of knowledge offstage, something's out of balance.
Young children are described as sponges because they soak up knowledge. But there's another side to the metaphor. Squeeze a dry sponge, and nothing comes out. First the sponge has to be filled.
[snip]
So the key to the first stage of the trivium is content, content, content. In history, science, literature, and, to a lesser extent, art and music, the child should be accumulating masses of information: stories of people and wars; names of rivers, cities, mountains, and oceans; scientific names, properties of matter, classifications; plots, characters, and descriptions. The young writer should be memorizing the nuts and bolts of language-- parts of speech, parts of a sentence, vocabulary roots. The young mathematician should be preparing for higher math by mastering the basic math facts."
And it just so happens that in this stage of learning, you're right, memorizing is fun.
"The Well-Trained Mind
ReplyDeleteSusan Wise Bauer and Jessie Bauer"
I have to get this book. Finally!
Is this book banned in schools of education?
Is this book banned in schools of education?
ReplyDeleteProbably. It would be difficult to diverge more dramatically from ed school philosophy than this.
It truly is a great reference book that sets forth classical education content grade by grade. I recommend it highly.
The Well-Trained Mind website give you a pretty good idea of what the book is about, but the book itself is a goldmine and worth every penny.
It would be difficult to diverge more dramatically from ed school philosophy than this.
ReplyDeleteTracy Lee Simmons "Climbing Parnassus" is even more divergent. It traces the history of classical education throughout the centuries and chronologically speaking should be read before Diane Ravitch's "A Century of Failed School Reforms" which picks up about in 1900 where Simmons leaves off.
The difference between Simmons and Wise Bauer is that Simmons gives you the "whys" of classical education and Wise-Bauer gives the "hows." I would summarize her hows as being for non-expert parents. Her area of expertise is writing and English, not physics and math and while her recommendations in those areas certainly won't send anyone into an educational death spiral, they also aren't nearly as clever and insightful as what she has to say about English, composition, history, and foreign language.
Her area of expertise is writing and English, not physics and math and while her recommendations in those areas certainly won't send anyone into an educational death spiral, they also aren't nearly as clever and insightful as what she has to say about English, composition, history, and foreign language.
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
For example, she is not particularly fond of Singapore Math although she does discuss some of the merits on the website. Nevertheless, it is clear that this program is superior to many of the alternatives she proposes.
I also noticed that Bauer does not include Hake Grammar in her analysis of language art curricula and yet I find it superior in many ways to the Shurley Grammar or Voyages in English she recommends.
As an overall roadmap for content by grade (a how to manual), this book is an excellent jumping off point. As you've noted, it is particularly insightful in the history, literature, and language arts arena. But as with any recommendation for curricula, you must exercise your good judgement at every turn.
That said, I find the emphasis on content in The Well-Trained Mind to be a welcome antidote to the seemingly anti-intellectual direction our public schools seem to be taking of late.
This is but one tool in our homeschooling toolbox, but it is a powerful one.
I'm not sure the Hake series was out when the first Well-Trained Mind came out.
ReplyDeleteThat book changed my life. I had a homeschooler friend who just handed it to me. I bought it several years ago and did as much as I could do as an after-schooler.
The great thing is that I've been going back through it again now that my son is in the logic stage and, once again, that book is getting us through.
Steve, I can't recommend it enough. It does go into the "how" more because it is supposed to help the first time homeschooler figure it all out. But all of her explanations about why she did what she did made so much sense to me at the time.
I followed a good deal of what I could in the book, and I am deeply grateful that I did. My only regret is that my son is so busy between school and sports that I can't quite do what the book suggests for the logic, or middle school, stage.
Another decent book for figuring out whether your school is doing alright is William Bennett's The Educated Child. You can keep coming back to it over the years.
You have to memorize the times table, and you have to memorize basic algorithms.
ReplyDeleteThe question is: what kind of memorization?
"Direct memorization" or "practice over many days/weeks of time" memorization.
One of these days I'll have to type up Parker & Baldridge's procedure for teaching the math facts. They manage to whittle the number of math facts that have to be directly memorized down to a handful.
Some educators think that a thematic (cross-subject) approach provides the best framework for knowledge. I disagree. Knowledge has to be first organized within its own subject area to have any kind of meaning. Thematic linkages do not provide a proper framework. Linkages must come after basic knowledge frameworks are built.
ReplyDeleteyes
My son loved the idea of learning about geography in first grade. He learned all of the states and capitals, could find any country in the world, and knew most of the world capitals. While we were in the car, he would always say: "Time for geography questions."
ReplyDeleteChris used to have his dad give him a geography quiz every single night before bed.
You're right, I don't think it was out yet. She does update curriculum reviews on the website, though. There's no mention of Hake there, unfortunately. In our experience, it's been very compatible with the approach to teaching grammar that Bauer proposes. You would think it would be a shoe-in.
ReplyDeleteThe Parrot Years
ReplyDeleteI love it!
I'm going to have to FINALLY read Well-Trained Mind.
ReplyDeleteTracy Lee Simmons "Climbing Parnassus"
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reference!
Climbing Parnassus,
ReplyDeleteYes, thank you! It's in my Amazon shopping cart just waiting for a home on my bookshelf.
"Journalists gather all the facts before writing their stories; scientists accumulate data before forming theories; violinists and dancers and defensive tackles rely on muscle memory, stored in their bodies by hours of drill."
ReplyDeleteWrong about scientists, misleading as to journalism.
As a rule, scientists don't go around collecting data at random, hoping it will lead to a theory. For one thing, collecting data is costly. Since they already have working frameworks, they form a hypothesis that extends what is already known, and then design a plan for collecting data (by experiment or observation) that they hope will distinguish between the case where the hypothesis is true from the case where it is false.
While it's true that much science now being done is in the iterative part of the scientific method, there are still quite a few scientists who are forming hypotheses from inchoate data. This was even more true previously, as witness the data gathering that preceded the development of gravitational theory.
ReplyDeleteEarly in the history of any field of science, data gathering is (must be) poorly focused. From this random data, the scientist attempts to find patterns. From the patterns, the scientist builds a testable hypothesis. From the results of the test, the hypothesis is refined into a theory.
I would characterize the description of what scientists do as somewhat misleading as regards many individuals, but broadly accurate as regards the mass of scientists working in a particular field.
I think I'll skip what I was going to say about journalists, except to say that the quote is clearly false on its face. It is not possible to "gather all the facts" about anything interesting. The basic thrust of the sentence seems reasonably reflective of the way competent professionals work, though.
It's entirely possible that the kind of journalist who MEETS THE DEADLINE gathers all the facts first.
ReplyDeleteAll the facts he/she's going to use, that is.
I am not in either of those categories.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I plan, in the future, to join the deadline-meeting group.